Principles of Discourse Deletion-Case Studies From English, Russian and Japanese*

A syntactically optional constituent in a sentence can be deleted if it is recoverable from the preceding context. This does not mean, however, that all such constituents are deletable. This paper hypothesizes that there is a pecking order of deletion, which dictates that deletion should proceed from less important to more important information. Evidence is drawn from English, Russian and Japanese in support of this hypothesis. Interaction of this constraint with various syntactic rules in each individual language is examined, and it it hypothesized that unacceptability does not result when the above peeking order of deletion principle is violated due to the structural pressure of the language. Further discourse deletion data from Russian and Japanese are introduced, and principles that control them are formulated and justified.